Reinventing Conservation Easements

This working paper has been published as a Lincoln Institute Policy Focus Report.

No recent happening in land conservation rivals the deployment from coast-to-coast of conservation easements. Beyond tax and other public subsidies, one of the driving forces favoring this phenomenon is that conservation easements are perceived as a win-win strategy in land protection, by which willing landowners work with private land trusts or government agencies to provide lasting protection of portions of the American landscape. In short, conservation easements often accomplish something that comes easily and makes people feel good, which is certainly no vice but which, together with their tax and other public subsidies, explain their extraordinarily rising popularity. The question, that this report will explore, is whether they may also present something of a time bomb that requires preventive action, and if so, what can be done to minimize the potential damage while realizing the benefit.